A suggestion to balance the game between free players and paying players

[AragornII 7]

3 minutes ago, brattygirl said:

Skills do not decay. When you rejoin and reprem they go back to what they were. Skill decay was something old that was removed a long time ago (Longer than the Freedom servers have been up).

Perhaps the wiki was outdated then, or wherever I read it (it was a official source tho). Thanks for the information!

[brattygirl 635]

4 minutes ago, AragornII said:

Perhaps that wasn’t my best idea. I was just thinking about a way to give premium players a advantage in terms of skill without having the hard cap. Do you have a alternative for free players?

 

Honestly, I have no idea. I think there needs to be a way better tutorial to show some more indepth parts of the game. Wurm has quite a steep learning curve and takes a lot of time to do things, and that can be quite scary to a new player. I know there used to be a first-time purchase of 2s to give a player a month of premium. Maybe increase that to allow it to be purchased a second time. Give them an extra month of cheap premium to experience being premium. Other than that, I do not know. There have been some good suggestions in this thread but unfortunately, it's hard to know what can work or not work without implementing something.

 

I really think wurm has done a great job with giving free players a chance to earn ingame premium. Between selling stuff to tokens, selling stuff to players. You can forage around and find coin quite quickly as well. There just needs to be some information for new players to know about these options.

[Finnn 2147]

tutorial? no.. that's what player guides are for.. also being social to ask around and learn something, if all know the same, you'll have pretty #### economy, because everybody's doing what the other do, leave spot for some meta, when you feel like you want to do what that other one does.. ask or lookup how you can get there

[AragornII 7]

2 hours ago, brattygirl said:

I really think wurm has done a great job with giving free players a chance to earn ingame premium. Between selling stuff to tokens, selling stuff to players. You can forage around and find coin quite quickly as well. There just needs to be some information for new players to know about these options.

 

Yes. I am glad I was told about it, but it really should be part of the tutorial.

[Lisimba 300]

18 hours ago, AragornII said:

No. A price is a price, like 1,99 for a newspaper. A subscription is paying a set price in advance to get that newspaper delivered every day/week/month/year. Those two are by no means the same. 

 

You're cutting things off.

 

You said: "If they set a price that would cover the cost and allow them to pay their devs,"

I said: "That price is the subscription itself. Are you suggesting a single-payment upfront life time subscription here?"

 

If the game is not to lose money, the one-time price would have to be the amount that (on average, anyway) such a player would pay in subscriptions over the entire life time of the game, because that is currently the amount that is covering their costs and is paying their devs. That is why they are asking that amount per month. If you are proposing that the amount would be lower, you're actually asking for a discount.

 

Mind that this is not just what the average player would pay. It'd be biased to people who are invested in the game enough they'd pay hundreds of dollars up front, so it'd have to be years worth of subscription.

 

18 hours ago, AragornII said:

Let’s say (as you seem to assume) that they’ll have to pay some outrageous price in one go. The advantage of that, however, is that it’s a onetime big splurge that I can save up for.

 

If you can afford to save up for the one time cost, you can also afford to just pay the monthly, unless you're proposing that the devs give you a really big discount for the one time cost.

 

18 hours ago, AragornII said:

So I can buy the game when times are good, and have access to the game even when times are bad.

 

Save up your own money when the times are good and use that to pay when the times are bad. Then you also have the option to use that money for real life emergencies, if it comes to it.

 

18 hours ago, AragornII said:

Currently, I’d have to pay regardless of if I can actually afford to. How is that supposed to be the better choice?

 

 

[AragornII 7]

On 7/1/2022 at 1:45 PM, Lisimba said:

If you can afford to save up for the one time cost, you can also afford to just pay the monthly

No. You see, the thing about saving up is that you can do that for however long you need, whereas this subscription is, y’know, a monthly expense. So in a bad month, if you can’t afford it, you’re screwed. Whereas if you’re saving up, a month with less money simply means that it takes longer to get what you’re saving up for. So being able to save up for some outrageous price doesn’t mean I can pay the monthly, it just means that I have patience.

Edited July 10 by AragornII
Clarity

[AragornII 7]

On 7/1/2022 at 1:45 PM, Lisimba said:

Save up your own money when the times are good and use that to pay when the times are bad

Except, y’know, that’s not possible. Else I’d probably do that, but it’d still be unbalanced and deceptively advertised, and that’d still be a problem even if I wasn’t personally affected by it. 

[Finnn 2147]

It's the preferred method to support and maintain the business.

If you have trouble to pay 8euro expense to play a video game, you have bigger problems, use the spare time to plan better what else you could do to improve that situation.

 

Alternatively there are plenty of ways to support your subscription for free if you have enough free time just by playing the game(if you prefer it)

 

 

 

[Seriphina 829]

Where is Wurm advertised as being free forever with no cost ever? It's not.  In fact, a quick google, even the steam link shows there's a subscription for skills over a certain level. 

 

This is not a game where you can pay for free in perpetuity.  It's free to a point. Then you support the game. End of story.  This gives you a chance to decide if the game is worth your money. Since you're trying to reason ways to pay it, clearly it's worth it to you.

 

No, it should not be cheaper/easier to get your monthly subscription because that's what actually pays for the game.

 

You do not need a deed to play, nor are you entitled to a deed. You pay a price for that privilege.

 

Your financial situation is not anyone else's fault/business. How you choose to spend your time/money is your own decision, but there are ways in game to earn the money from other players in order to fund your premium. A bit of time investment easily covers premium each month, though the tasks to accomplish them may not be enjoyable. That's why people pay others to do those tasks with their own money.

 

Why is this thread even still open?

 

 

 

[DaletheGood 634]

2 hours ago, Seriphina said:

Where is Wurm advertised as being free forever with no cost ever? It's not.  In fact, a quick google, even the steam link shows there's a subscription for skills over a certain level. 

 

This is not a game where you can pay for free in perpetuity.  It's free to a point. Then you support the game. End of story.  This gives you a chance to decide if the game is worth your money. Since you're trying to reason ways to pay it, clearly it's worth it to you.

 

No, it should not be cheaper/easier to get your monthly subscription because that's what actually pays for the game.

 

You do not need a deed to play, nor are you entitled to a deed. You pay a price for that privilege.

 

Your financial situation is not anyone else's fault/business. How you choose to spend your time/money is your own decision, but there are ways in game to earn the money from other players in order to fund your premium. A bit of time investment easily covers premium each month, though the tasks to accomplish them may not be enjoyable. That's why people pay others to do those tasks with their own money.

 

Why is this thread even still open?

All of that! especially this:

2 hours ago, Seriphina said:

Why is this thread even still open?

 

[Sheffie 759]

"Free to play" does not mean "this game has no monetization whatsoever."

 

There's no point arguing about whether the term is deceptive, because it's perfectly possible to sign up, develop skills, sell your labour, found a deed, buy premium and so on... without ever showing a credit card or PayPal account.